08h30 North Vancouver 

Here  I sit at the dining table typing this when the plan had us well on our way to YVR at this time.  We had set our alarms for 5:30 and ordered a taxi for 7:45 but when I looked at my phone, there were notifications about our flights sent in the wee hours.  Our first-leg flight, to Montréal, had been cancelled and we'd been rebooked on a different flight.  The first thing I noticed was that the new flight left at 13:15 instead of 11:45 and my first thought was that we would never make our connection (for which the original itinerary had a tight--to me--90 minutes).  Further investigation showed that the new itinerary had a completely different route:  Vancouver to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Lyon.  Happily the first leg is on Air Canada and only the second leg on Lufthansa.  Not that there's anything particularly wrong with Lufthansa other than their exorbitant bike fees (CA$375 each last time I checked).  We had checked in and paid Air Canada's CA$50 each for our bikes last night and I'm curious what would have happened if we had been rebooked on a Lufthansa flight from YVR.

The unhappy part is that, instead of us each having our preferred (and paid-for) seats on the long transatlantic flight, window for me and aisle for Al and hopefully nobody in between, we have both been placed in middle seats for the 10-hour full flight to Frankfurt.  Ugh.  I am awaiting reimbursement of the seaat-selection fees and hoping there are no-shows and we can get better seats at the airport.  Failing that, I will unleash my Canadian "elbows out" and claim my space.

Rescheduled taxi should be here in about half an hour.

11h00 YVR

Now sitting at the gate with 90 minutes before boarding starts. Things are looking much better!

As usual, we took a taxi from home to the Vancouver Centre Canada Line station, with the usual hope from the driver that we’d change our minds and have him drive us all the way to the airport. But no. We will save our money for a taxi at the other end, when we will be tired and don’t know the transit system.

At YVR, we had the most friendly and helpful check-in agent ever!  She managed to change our seats so we are both on an aisle, one behind the other. So much better than crammed between two strangers.

Next step was dropping our bikes at oversized baggage. Again, a superlative agent, this one being the most thorough inspector. She required us to take almost everything, except the bike frame, out of the case and open up our bags of tools and parts.  Al assured her that we had deflated the tires; most inspectors seem to expect them to be dead flat but that could lead to wheel or rim damage. The other usual question is about CO2 but I don’t carry it and Al will likely get some in Lyon. 

Security was very quick. Fewer people travelling internationally, perhaps, or maybe we just got lucky.  I understand travel to the US from Canada is way down but that’s a different area of the airport. 

21h00 Lyon

Even without being crammed into middle seats, it was a very long flight to Frankfurt. Note to self:  don’t choose Frankfurt as a connection airport if there’s a choice. Not that it’s a particularly bad airport, it’s just HUGE!  We, however, had over 4 hours so that allowed plenty of time to find and clear passport control, walk quite a ways to an articulated bus shuttle to take us to the “A” gates, and then walk another long way to our gate.  It was busy as there was a different flight departing from there so we found seats near a gate not in use. Two flights departed from the gate where we were sitting, then when we checked, our scheduled gate had changed from A30 to A34. When the boarding time was getting closer, we walked down to A34 but discovered when we got there that our gate was now A26, where we’d been sitting. Okay, back to there, but while we were walking, the gate changed again to A28!  I was glad we weren’t dealing with moving our bikes from track to track at a train station, even with lifts!

We had again been assigned to middle seats, but I spoke to the gate agent and she managed to find us a window and and aisle seat with nobody between. Right at the back of the plane but that was fine. 

We arrived, our bikes arrived, and we quickly found a taxi. There were several large wagon taxis in the queue and when the driver on the next one (a few cars back) saw us, he came to bring us to his car. 

It’s a long way from the airport to our hotel in Presqu’Île. I suppose we could have taken a train to the main station and a taxi from there, but we were tired.  Still, it was one of our most expensive taxi rides. 

We checked in and reassembled our bikes as soon as we’d dropped our other bags in our room. Our hotel is on the second floor of a classical building, two flights up with a tiny elevator. I might have gotten my bike into the elevator vertically and diagonally, but I don’t think Al’s would have fit. No matter, there’s a locked bike storage room on the ground floor and there was enough space behind/beside the elevator for us to work on our bikes. 

I started writing this section after our evening walk, while we were waiting for our meals at a…restaurant isn’t the word. More like a bar that serves food.   And once again, our first meal was nothing memorable. We both ordered salade lyonnaise, which turned out to be mostly frisée lettuce, with lots of lardons and croutons, a couple of cherry tomatoes, and a strongly mustard-y dressing.  I had a glass of wine and Al had a draft beer. Nothing more to say about that. 

Time to get some sleep!